Category Archives: 692R Analytics

Best line I’ve heard in a while, from Ben Robertson (senior consultant in the High-Tech division at Omniture…yeah, I think I’m older than he is 🙂 about how to deal with the common resistance to tracking new metrics in web analytics. You know, metrics besides “unique visitors” and “pageviews” which most executives (and most analysts for that matter) simply call “traffic.”

Company IT Manager: We can’t! That’s what our executives want to see!Omniture Consultant: Not it’s not! That’s just what you’ve been giving them.

His advice: go ahead and give them what they’re asking for, then give them what they should be asking for.
Hmmm…

This has really got me thinking. Take, for example the opening page of BYU’s Math 110 independent study course, entitled Special Instructions. Time-on-page for these users seemed fairly cleanly [though not evenly] split between those who simply skipped or made a quickly-abandoned attempt at scanning the page [spending 30 seconds or less] and those who put forth the rather ponderous 4 minute [an eternity online] effort to read the entire page. If 75% of our users really are “scanners” [then again, we only think we know this] then perhaps they [and, for that matter, we] would get more out of our site if we designed the content to be scanned.

I’m struggling with this one. Our web analytics class is looking at a couple months’ worth of data from BYU’s most popular independent study course, Math 110 [not sure what the definition of “popular” is in this case, by the way] and making some recommendations, both about their tracking suite and about the course itself. Clint explained, and I understand, that analytics is not meant for examining a handful of people—it’s for looking at trends, types, aggregates. But, for me, that aggregation leads to serious questions.

As if we needed more evidence that the education field has not, shall we say, fully capitalized on the potential of web analytics to improve instructional design and learning, I offer the following observations, in no particular order, from my recent search permutations on the subject:

#1 most common result: companies offering education and training on the subject of web analytics.

The following are a few examples [untainted by any sort of experience with the subject matter, and irrespective of what is currently regarded as possible] of metrics I would find useful for gauging and improving the effectiveness of an instructional website:

Order and Timing: My primary frustration with the rudimentary analytics I have encountered so far has been a lack of correlation between behaviors. It seems that every minute piece of behavior is excised from the holistic experience and examined under a microscope independent of any of the surrounding behaviors. Not only that, but significant decisions are reached based on these dissected data. I want to be able to track navigation patterns with time spent per page and so forth.

Complex Behavior Visualization: The gist of this one is the creation of a three-dimensional map of the site allowing the designer to follow the path of a user [or an aggregate of users] through the site; streams of color that indicate the speed of transitions between pages, the number of times a page was hit, search terms, results and which one was chosen; size differences indicative of relative popularity/traffic; etc.

Comparative Paths: I’d love to be able to filter and compare the behavior of different target populations. Even just knowing how users referred from Google interact with the material differently than those who type in the address directly could be insightful. In an ideal world, I would be able to sort users according to target profiles [could be hardware, could be navigation style, could be socio-economic status] and examine the patterns of their interactions with the site; which links were clicked in what order, how much time was spent on which pages, what “conversion” goals were reached by each group, where and when did they bail?

Diverting the Stream of Consciousness: Having experienced first-hand the sometimes dramatically counter-intuitive insights provided by eye-tracking and think-aloud usability testing protocols, I would love to allow users the opportunity to opt into a remote usability lab environment, where the machine would capture eye motion and any verbal feedback the user cared to offer, even offering occasional prompts and feed it into a real-time database. Emerging themes would be automatically flagged and the designer could set up filters according to demographics or any other standard metric; entry point, referring site, time on page etc. to uncover patterns and monitor the effects of changes.

For several years now, scholars and pundits have been talking about the effects of what they term the “digital divide;” the widening rift between those who have access to and skills to use new information technologies and those who don’t. Often, they speak of this gap as if it has changed the face of privilege in the world–it used to be that material wealth separated the haves and have-nots, now it’s information.

The more I think about it, the more I believe this concept isn’t new. Access to information and learning has always been what separated the haves from the have-nots. One history of an ancient people includes this observation [and caution]: “And the people begantobedistinguished by ranks, according to their riches and their chances for learning; yea, some were ignorant because of their poverty, and others did receive great learning because of their riches.”

Whether the idea that knowldge and chances for learning divide haves and have-nots represents a paradigm shift or not, it has been sobering to remember this week that no matter how it’s delineated, I come down squarely on the side of the “haves” every time.

Boy this one has hit me upside the head. There are at least a half-dozen plausible explanations, but frankly I am too behind at the moment to make excuses.

I’m back at BYU. Taking some fabulous classes from sometrulyremarkableprofessors, [some others of whom have yet to develop much of a web presence :)] In several of said fabulous classes, we’ve been asked to blog [or journal] our way through the semester, beginning as always with introductions. In the interest of time, and space in your feed-readers, I am going to attempt to cover all of these introductions under the following title: “What My Fall08 Semester Schedule Says About Me”

The first thing you’ll likely notice is that all the course numbers in my schedule start with a 5, 6, or 7. That’s because I am a grad student.

Next, you’ll notice that there are quite a few of them…probably more than any reasonable person would take, and probably more than my wise advisors advised. That’s because I am crazy…and sometimes not very good at taking advise.

Then, you might be puzzled as to why half of the classes start with MBA, and half with IPT. This is because I do much better with people than things, or even ideas, and I’m fascinated by courses like “Third World Development,” “Designing and Leading Teams,” and “Power, Influence and Negotiation.” I want to change the world.

Knowing that, some of the other courses might puzzle you still more; “Web Analytics” and “New Media and Learning” for example. I’m taking these courses because I am repenting. For years now, I have quite purposefully, and I might now say rather arrogantly and short-sightedly, passed off all responsibility for the 1’s and 0’s side of all this remarkable technology to someone else…anyone else. I recognize now that I have a responsibility of basic technological literacy that I have let slide in the name of “doing what you’re good at,” and I am really trying to eat crow fresh…plus, the courses are actually very interesting.

Lastly, though I don’t think you could get this from the schedule, Fall 2008 says that I still love to learn. I love being challenged. I love feeling my brain stretch when someone suggests a perspective I’ve never thought of. I love the way that all the truths from metatags to metaphysics somehow weave themselves together into my heart and change me. I love the power and potential of this community I’ve been welcomed into. It’s going to be a great game.